Damien’s Big Day

Damien woke up.  He felt sharp, powerful, good looking.  He looked in the mirror.  He was thirty but looked younger, thin and lanky, wearing striped shorts and an electric blue blazer. “Hey, good lookin’,” he said and nodded.  He wondered why he had slept in a blazer, but didn’t complain.  It was a pleasant surprise.  He made a little gun shape with his hand and shot at himself.   “Lookin’ good,” he smiled.  “Really good.”  And then a sack of potatoes hit him.  Not actually a sack of potatoes, but a thought so obvious and so heavy that it felt like a sack of potatoes would, if they hit him. 

His wife was insane.  He had to find a new one today. 

Damien picked up the phone and called his friend Nick.  Nick was good with the ladies.   Nick watched football, knew how to make a mean sausage, and swore.  Damien asked Nick to arrange a blind date for him.

“Hey, Nick?  I need a new wife.  Can you help me out?”

“Sure,” said Nick.  “Be ready in fifteen bitchin’ minutes.”  He swore a lot.  Sometimes it didn’t make sense. 

“Yes!  Thank you!”  Damien was excited, ready, lucky.  He was golden. 

Damien walked down stairs and into his backyard. His wife, Eleanor was sitting in the dirt potting bright flowers in a homemade ceramic Dalmatian.  Her hair was red and wild and standing up straight, she was wearing a coat that looked suspiciously like their old living room carpet and she was singing a German drinking song in high, high falsetto.  

“Hi Eleanor how was your morning,” said Damien, robotically.

“It’s operaaaaa day, sweeeeeetheart,” she sang, loudly, obtrusively, but pleasantly on key. 

“What?”

“It’s operaaaaaa daaaaay!  Siiiiiing with meeeeee!” she ordered him.  “I refuse to listen until you SIIIIIIIIIIING!”

Damien hesitated.  He really didn’t want to.  “Eleanooor,” he weakly hummed.  “I am going on a bliiind daaate.”  His voice was getting stronger.  “IIIIII juuuust thouuuught youuu shouuuuld knoooooooow!”  He was getting into it.  “I THIIIIINK IIIT WILL GOOOOO REEEEEEALLYY WELLLL!!!”  He started to sway.  He added vibrato.  “IIIII THIIIINK SHEEEEE WILLLL REALLLLYYYY LIKE MEEEEE!!”  He was on fire.

“Thaaaat is moooore like it, HONEEEEY!!”  Eleanor fell to the ground.  “WOOONDERFUUUL!!”  She was gyrating, convulsing in the dirt.  “HALLELUJAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”  She held the last note, inviting her husband to join her in perfect harmony.  He tried, and failed.  She gave him another note.  Damien took another stab at it.  Again, nothing remotely in tune. 

“Eff this.”  He gave up.  He was frustrated.  He stopped swaying, stopped singing, stopped waving his arms at the sky.  It was back to business.  Serious business.  “Eleanor?  You are certifiable.  I am moving out.  You never listen to anything I say.  I don’t think we have ever had a two-way conversation.”  Eleanor was singing to herself.  “LISTEN TO ME, WOMAN.  I am going on a blind date and I am LEAVING YOU once I make this blind date my new wife!”  Damien was fuming, seething. 

Eleanor stopped singing.  She was stern, unsmiling.  “I dare you,” she said through gritted teeth.

“It’s on,” Damien growled back.  He looked at his watch.  “Oh, Eff!  It’s been fifteen minutes!  I gotta run!”  Damien ran down the street and into Grey Café.  He saw a woman sitting alone at a coffee table.  She had a blank expression on her face and a piece of shortbread in her hand.  He decided to change that.  He sat down next to her.  So this was a date.  A blind one.  He was nervous.

“Hi hello hi how are you hi hello.  Hey, I’m Damien.  Do you mind?”  He gestured at the shortbread, grabbed it from her and took a bite.  It was dry so he spit it out.  He quickly realized that this was probably not the way to impress a woman.  He took another bite.  He took it like a man.  He swallowed it.  “So what’s your name?”

“Did you just eat my shortbread?”  The woman was wearing cream.  All cream.  Cream on cream.  Damien didn’t like that very much.

Damien continued.  “I believe so!  Forgive me if I’m a little rusty.  But you see, that was meant to be playful, flirty.  This is a date.”  He swatted her nose. 

“Don’t touch me.”  The woman in cream had an attitude, apparently.

“You never told me your name!  Or are you feeling anonymous today?  My wife does that sometimes, Eleanor.  She feels a lot.  Feels different things everyday.  It is quite frustrating to be around, actually.  Never know what to expect.  Always something new, exciting.  I am leaving her.  Today.  Well, first I am finding a new wife.  One that isn’t quite so…  Insane?  And then I will leave her.  Best to plan ahead, is what I always say.  Better safe than sorry, you know?”

“Hm.”  The woman in cream stared blankly at him.  Then she left.   

Damien groaned.  He rolled his eyes.  He was disappointed.  “Eff,” he said.  What a dull woman.  He decided to try again later.  He walked back home, feeling deflated, awkward, bad looking.  He also felt like he should probably lie and tell his wife that the date went well.  He walked up the carpeted stairs and into the warm, fragrant kitchen. His wife, Eleanor, was sitting on a flowered yoga mat in the middle of the room.  She was in an orange kimono, her hair was held up by chopsticks, her face was painted white, her legs were in the lotus position and she was breathing heavily.  The Crystal Bowls of China were playing and there was a fountain next to her that looked homemade.  Damien found a note on the butcher block and read it.

Dearest Damien,

Greetings!

I am feeling half-Asian today. 

Do not disrupt me.  I am in the zone.

Help yourself to the spring rolls.

Love and best wishes,  Eleanor

P.S.  If your date went so well, how come it only lasted five minutes?

Damien whimpered.  “Eff.”  How did she know?  He wrote a note back.

Dearest Eleanor,

I had so much fun on my last date that I am going on another one!

Wish me luck!

xoxo,   Damien

P.S. You brought this upon yourself.

Damien took a spring roll, ate it, took another, walked out the front door, got into his car and started looking for a bar.  He found one.  It was called Humdrum.  He parked and went inside.  There was a woman sitting there alone.  He pounced on the opportunity.

 “Hi!  Need a drink?”

“I don’t drink,” the woman said quietly, monophonic.

“Funny you should say that because, in case you hadn’t noticed, this is a bar!”  Damien was determined.  He and this woman would have a conversation.  A good one.  A two-way one.

“I come here for the free peanuts,” she said.  She stared down at the bar.  She didn’t look up. 

“Oh.  Ok… Tell me about your life!” he said.

“Not much to say,” she said.

“Are you serious?”  Damien was disappointed.  He looked at her.  Her skin looked grey.  Her eyes were droopy, half closed.

“Yep.  Grew up in the suburbs.  Went to school.  Now I work as a receptionist.  In a dentist office.”  She barely opened her mouth as she spoke.

“And what do you do there?” Damien prodded.  “Anything interesting?”

“Not really.”  The woman ate a peanut.

Damien decided that this woman was not worth much more of his time.  There was a man at the bar sitting a couple stools down.  Damien got up and sat next to him.  The woman didn’t seem to notice.

“Hi, I’m Damien.”

“I’m Rayshawn,” said the man.  He shook Damien’s hand. 

Damien told Rayshawn that he was splitting up with his wife and looking for a new one.  He tried to explain why.  “You see, she sings all the time, and meditates… not all the time, but only when she is feeling Asian.  And she makes spring rolls, and sews me clothes that are queer, at best, and redecorates the house every other week…  And we don’t have children, but I guess that could change.  And talks a lot and doesn’t shut up, and never listens to me.  But at least she’s got something to say, I guess.”

“Cheers to that.”  Rayshawn held up his glass.  It was empty.

Damien kept going.  “And our house is so small and cluttered… but it always smells delicious.  And she is always cooking and it always tastes delicious too, and she is always talking.  And always has something to say...” 

Rayshawn had fallen asleep.  Damien didn’t notice.  He got up and ran back home.

“Eleanor!” he screamed.  “Eleanor!  I want to talk to you!”

Eleanor entered the room in an evening gown.  She gave him a pageant wave.  “You rang?”  She was suddenly speaking in an English accent.  “What is it dear?”

Damien looked at her.  “I have trouble with accents, Ellie.  Could you please speak in an American one?”

Eleanor looked confused.  “OK.”

“Thanks.”  There was a silence.  A long one.  Damien waited for Eleanor to speak.  But she didn’t.  “Well, Eleanor.  I have found that women are quite boring.”

“Eff you!” said Eleanor, taking it personally.

“Not you personally, dear.  Other women.  Other women are boring.”

“Dull?  Characterless?” offered Eleanor.

“Lifeless, colorless, ho hum, uninspiring, lackluster, dullsville,” answered Damien.

“ Plain vanilla!” Eleanor cried.  “Plain Jane!  Dry, stale, tired, mind-numbing, wearisome!”

“Exaclty!” said Damien.  He looked at his wife.  She looked good in that gown.  Really good.  And then it hit him.  Hard.  “Eleanor, we are having a two way conversation!  We are speaking.  Together.  Speaking together, Eleanor!”  He was excited about this. 

“Yes, dear.”  She wasn’t as excited as he was.  “That’s good.” 

“Yes it is!  And you look stunning!”  He picked her up.  “You are stunning!  And interesting!”  He spun her around.  “You are stunning and interesting, Eleanor!”  And then Damien carried her upstairs, singing all the way, and dancing too, and when they got there they did things that are worth mentioning but should probably not be mentioned.  And then they had a child.  Nine months later.